


Thaw

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Swan Queen Week, post 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1773661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for caregiving day of Swan Queen Week. A few days after 3b.</p><p>“H-hey. I got inside.” She shivers again, inordinately pleased with herself. “I’m g-gonna pick fights with all the ice g-goddesses out there if that’s what it takes for you to let me in.” Regina silently moves her fingers to trace a line down Emma’s jaw, and her teeth finally stop chattering. “Of course, I might be dead soon,” she amends. “So I guess that may not always work.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thaw

She’s so, so cold.

 

She’s shivering uncontrollably, the chill seeping into her skin, deeper and deeper until she can’t breathe without it being a struggle, without her breath being sucked out in gasping sobs that only make her shudder ever more violently, make her rock in place and slump against walls and she can barely lurch forward as she struggles toward Mifflin Street.

 

It’s _stupid_ to go to Regina, probably her worst decision yet, and not only because her parents and the hospital would both have been a closer walk. It’s been…what, two days? Three? And Regina has been refusing her calls, has been watching from the window when she sends Henry back and forth, has sequestered herself in her mansion like it’s a fortress to keep out Emma Swan and only Emma Swan. 

 

It burns the most that _Snow_ has been given access to Regina these past few days. That even Regina’s mortal enemy is now on better terms with Regina than Emma is. And even Robin had arrived once and been spoken to, even if he’d been sent away minutes later. 

 

No, she isn’t stalking Regina. She’s just…sitting outside in her car most days, keeping an eye out for any regression from her. And making sure that if it comes, no one else gets hurt in the crossfire. Yeah. That’s all. Henry can stop giving her pitying looks whenever he jogs across the street to tell her that his mom isn’t coming out and she can go home now.

 

She can see the yellow blur down the block, mocking her as she stumbles closer toward it. She’d decided to walk to Zelena’s old house to investigate and had left her car behind, just in case Regina looked out the window and thought she’d left. She doesn’t know why it’s so important that Regina knows that she’s always there, but it _is_.

 

So, stupid decisions all around.

 

She makes it all the way to Regina’s porch before the convulsions start and she’s jerking around, haphazard; and she barely manages to hit the doorbell before she slumps to the ground, hanging onto the pillar at the end of the porch as her insides ice over more and more. _Open the door, open the door, dammit Regina for once just open the door!_

 

And somehow her feverish demands break through the Emma-repelling shield that is Regina’s front door. Amazing. And a voice she hasn’t heard in days (and has _missed_ , god, what’s wrong with her) demands, “Did you give yourself a seizure to convince me to listen to you?” 

 

She flings herself forward for dear life, catching hold of Regina’s waist with both arms, and Regina catches her automatically. She examines her with critical eyes, supporting her as she gapes down at her. “What the hell happened to you?” 

 

“So…cold…” Emma manages, and she collapses in Regina’s arms in a dead faint.

 

* * *

 

When she comes to, she’s still freezing, the cold digging thin little claws into her chest and stomach and legs, but her wet clothes are gone and she’s wrapped in blankets instead. Breathing is still hard, though her convulsions have died down into soft, incessant shivering, and a warm hand is pressed to her forehead.

 

She forces her eyes open and immediately catches Regina's dark-eyed gaze. “Th-this is b-better.” Her teeth are chattering a rhythm into her ears from the wrong end, her whole torso trembling up-down-up-down in the blankets like a burrito on the elliptic, but there’s warmth against her forehead and Regina is looking down at her. And that’s kind of nice.

 

“H-hey. I got inside.” She shivers again, inordinately pleased with herself. “I’m g-gonna pick fights with all the ice g-goddesses out there if that’s what it takes for you to let me in.” Regina silently moves her fingers to trace a line down Emma’s jaw, and her teeth finally stop chattering. “Of course, I might be dead soon,” she amends. “So I guess that may not always work.”

 

“ _Emma_.” Regina looks so sad, so confused and worried, and Emma thinks that she’s gotten so _pretty_ like this. Oh, Mayor Mills had been breathtaking back in their heyday, terrifying and intimidating and oh so tempting; but Regina’s face is soft now, curves of steel whittled down into gentleness and sorrow, and she has the kind of beauty that would inspire artists to weep over their craft and freeze critics in their tracks.

 

She remembers Regina ducking into her hotel room for a meeting just before they’d defeated Zelena with a beaming smile on her face and she’d been spellbound and resentful of the one who’d put it there.

 

And now she’s delirious. Great.

 

“What did you do now?” Regina's murmuring, stroking flattened wet strands of hair from where they’re matted to Emma’s face. Her face darkens, her voice lowers dangerously, and the sorrow is gone and replaced with fury. “Don’t you dare blame this on your recent obsession with me. I’m not obligated to _make you feel better about it_ no matter how long you leave your car parked outside.” 

 

“What? That’s not why I’m there!” Emma protests. “This wasn’t about you, I swear! I just…” She deflates with a sigh, a puff of cold air dissipating into the air. “You were right, okay?” 

 

“Okay?” But her knuckles are running along the sides of Emma’s face again, following a path from her ears to her hair to her jaw and sending little sparks of heat along their way. So maybe she’s not furious. That’s something.

 

Something that won’t last Emma’s next admission. “Something else came back with us. I went to shut that portal today because it was still leaking–“ 

 

“Why didn’t you call me?” Regina shakes her head, looking dismayed. “You don’t have nearly the amount of discipline it would take to close a portal. You could have been killed.” 

 

Half the time she’s supposed to be all-powerful, half the time she’s a fumbling incompetent idiot. Regina’s a funny kind of teacher. “You wouldn’t have picked up your phone anyway!”

 

“You could have had Snow call me. Or Henry.” Her eyes widen. “Tell me you didn’t bring him along with you.” 

 

“Of course not,” Emma says, irritated. “And I’ve been trying this little thing lately called respecting your boundaries. You know, sitting outside your house without climbing into your room. Because I _could_. I thought you’d appreciate this.” She sighs. “I didn’t really want you to find another way I’d fucked up. I thought I’d take care of it and we’d never have to think about that fucking portal again, but then…” She gives a particularly violent shake to punctuate it. “Some woman appeared and started shooting ice missiles at me. I don’t know what it did to my insides but I’m thinking it’s…”

 

“Elsa,” Regina says grimly, pulling down the blanket to press her hands against Emma’s abdomen. When she lifts her head, she can see a latticework of starbursts white against her skin like dozens of scars across her stomach and chest. It’s like a startlingly symmetrical snowflake across her whole body, and she stops shivering only under Regina’s touch.

 

“I didn’t know you’d seen the movie.”

 

“I spent a good half a week seeing a man with a five-year-old. I’ve seen it twice already and I wake up some mornings humming that damned snowman song.” She glowers at Emma’s smirk. “Do _you_ want to be a snowman?” 

 

“That’s not how it goes,” she offers weakly, and _dammit_ , now it’s stuck in her head, too. “Anyway. Am I going to die?” 

 

“No. These aren’t fatal blows.” Regina examines her again, sliding her palm across Emma’s stomach, her fingers twitching against the band of Emma’s underwear. “This Elsa is apparently better trained than the one in the movie. Which is both better and worse for us.” 

 

“A little lower,” Emma murmurs, her eyes glazing over, and Regina automatically shifts her hands downward before she jerks them away. 

 

“Miss Swan!” 

 

She shivers. “Sorry. So cold. Not…not thinking straight. Yeah.” 

 

“You’re impossible.” But Regina is still tracing the path of the ice blasts, skipping her waist to follow it down her legs, and she doesn’t look quite as furious as she should. In fact…is that…a smile, curling up at the edges of her mouth? 

 

Emma doesn’t push her luck. “So, Doc? Will I live?” 

 

“From this? Yes. You'll need to sweat it out for a few hours, maybe a day at most, but you’ll be fine.” Regina’s lips are still twitching, and the deep frown that she proffers for Emma isn’t fooling anyone. “From your smart mouth? No. Need I remind you that I can conjure fire with a single thought?” 

 

“Ha. I knew you wanted to kill me. Henry owes me ten bucks.” 

 

Regina’s fingers pause somewhere in her inner thighs. _Is she doing this on purpose? Probably._ “You’ve been gambling with our son?” 

 

She’s shivering again, whatever Regina had done to warm her torso gone. “I feel like you wanting to kill me is way worse than me betting a couple of bills with Henry.” 

 

Regina heaves a long suffering sigh, pressing her hands to Emma’s legs (She’s never been so grateful for Ruby’s Waxing Wednesdays as she is today, because seriously, before Ruby, they’d practically been _furry_ during the winter months) and sliding them upward again. “You’ll pay Henry that money. I don’t want to kill you, Emma.” She considers, thoughtful. “Maybe maim.” 

 

“Yikes.”

 

“Permanently encase in a block of ice?” Her eyes glitter dangerously and Emma winces. “You’re halfway there already. It’s far more sustainable than a poisoned apple.”

 

“Will I still be this cold?”

 

Regina’s eyes flicker up to her face. “You’re still not warm?”

 

“Only where you’re touching me.” It’s like a line from a bad romance novel, and the fact that Emma feels obligated to waggle her eyebrows suggestively while saying it is…probably not helping her case.

 

But then she shudders hard again, completely unconsciously, and Regina’s irritation fades away again into concern. “This is not good. You won’t last long enough to get it out of your system if you’re still this cold.”

 

She’s starting to feel sleepy again. It’s been too long since Regina had been touching her face. “It’s…it’s fine. I’m okay.” 

 

“You’re going into shock again.” Regina’s voice is oddly distant, like she’s calling out from the other end of a tunnel. “Emma, concentrate on me. I’m going to try…”

 

Emma drifts off, surrendering to the chill that expands and expands in her brain until it feels like it might explode her skull into shards.

 

* * *

 

This time, when she opens her eyes to Regina’s, they’re just inches away. And as vertical as she is. 

 

The cold is gone for now, reduced to only a faint ache under her skin, and Regina whispers, “Not a word about this or I move away,” before Emma registers what’s going on. 

 

Regina’s stripped down to her underwear, legs tangled around Emma’s and her body pressed to hers, her hands rubbing against Emma’s cheeks. She’s burning up, fire against the ice roiling to break free of Emma’s skin, and Emma reaches out to pull her even closer, to feel that blessed, blessed warmth a little more. “Not a word,” she promises, and she doesn’t dare contemplate how good Regina feels wrapped in her arms, beyond heat and Elsa’s magic and their own.

 

Regina’s still watching her- and maybe it’s because they don’t have a choice but to be staring at each other in this position, but it’s muted and thoughtful in ways that Emma hadn’t ever thought Regina would look at her again. (Another thing she’s _missed_ , unlikely as it seems- Regina’s eyes when she looks at her. It’s always felt different, and maybe that was just her ego talking, but it had stopped around when Regina had started running around the forest with a dude from, like, the twelfth century. And here those eyes are once more.) And her throat is catching her breath again, but this time she’s not all that cold. It’s too much.

 

“You didn’t fuck up.” The profanity sounds strange from Regina’s mouth, and _fuck_ now she’s thinking about another use for it, about the two of them in this bed and Regina snapping out _fuck me_ like this is some highbrow fantasy about being dominated by some femme–

 

Crap. Has she always been this bad around Regina, or is just when they’re both nearly naked? (She’s pretty sure that the answer to both those questions is _yes_.) “Uh. What?” 

 

Regina’s thumbs are stroking her lips, prickling up goosebumps in the skin where they meet. “You saved Marian’s life. You never mentioned from whom.” 

 

“Oh.” She shouldn’t feel this _bad_ , lying in bed with a woman who’d nearly killed so many people she knows, but somehow she does. Because it’s Regina, who’d been twisted and transformed by a mother and a teacher and probably Emma’s own grandfather until she’d made herself something _evil_. And then she’d singlehandedly rewritten her own story into martyrdom, and it concerns Emma and draws her in all at once. There’s something about Regina that engenders sympathy and affection, and Emma’s been slowly sucked into that dark place where she seeks light for Regina as readily as Regina does the same.

 

“Marian did mention it, though. To her husband. I think…” She laughs, bitter and beaten. “I think he might’ve wanted to go after me before she told him that. But now it’s done.” 

 

She shrugs moodily. “I suppose I should thank you for undoing one of my many sins. For keeping me from hurting someone I’d grown rather fond of and tearing apart his family.” 

 

Emma blinks at her. “That’s…not at all a normal reaction to what happened. Maybe if you were, like, a saint or something. Or my parents, I guess. But you’re perfectly entitled to rage over it a little. He was your soulmate. Or true love. Or his tattoo is? I didn’t really get the story Henry told me.”

 

“Thank you for the permission, Miss Swan,” Regina says dryly. “But I’m aware of that. I’m just…I think I’m just not interested in taking anything more from her.”

 

It’s not just sympathy, it’s genuine pain shooting through her heart, making it thump harder and everything hurts so much. For this woman who was murderer, this woman who'd wanted to be more and had been punished with karmic retribution instead. Poetic justice, maybe, but it sucks all the same. “I’m sorry.”

 

“I know you are.” Regina half-smiles, gentle and pained like _The same thing I always do_ and quiet understanding in the woods of Neverland. “You’ve been trying to tell me so for days.” 

 

“Yeah.” Emma flushes. “That wasn’t about me, Regina. That was…” She doesn’t know herself, really. Why has she been sitting outside Regina’s house since she’d gotten home from the past? She barely goes home to sleep at night and she’s been skipping out shifts at the station and all she does is stake out Regina’s house with singleminded intensity. And the only thing on her mind has been- “I didn’t want you to be alone again. You did a full year without…” She inhales deeply. “I was going to take Henry again and leave you alone.”

 

Regina is still warm, warm enough that she can feel their bodies getting sticky with sweat from how close they’re locked together but she still manages to close the gap between them even more. “And you thought that instead of taking away my son, you’d…what, give me him _and_ an unwanted visitor?”

 

“I guess?” It’s guilt, yeah, and it’s affection, and it’s something she can’t quite put her finger on. But she knows instinctively- as someone who’d been granted new memories and can hold them up against the old ones- that no one should be left alone when heartbroken and suffering from the loss of a son. And maybe it hasn’t been about how volatile Regina is, because _really_ , she knows that Regina isn’t going on any rampages anytime soon. That’s not who Regina is anymore.

 

This is who Regina is, standoffish and raising a skeptical brow and glaring at her like she’s the cute, fuzzy plush doll version of the cartoonish villain she’d once been. Safe to touch. Cozy to hold. “You’re an idiot.”

 

“Too bad your kid got my genes.”

 

Regina shifts away at that, ignoring her whimpered protest. “Our son could _never_ be an idiot Charming.” But her eyes light up at the thought of him, and Emma can’t stop a smile from creeping onto her face at the love on Regina’s face. Regina’s love is terrifyingly immense, a gift so rare and strong that the few who’ve been granted it are guaranteed it forever (no matter how many fiancés you hand off to her mom, and yeah, maybe she’s still a little resentful that Snow had gotten through to Regina before her) and on some of her crankier days lately, she’s thought that Robin Hood isn’t nearly impressive enough to deserve it.

 

“What are you thinking about?” Emma ventures, wriggling back into Regina’s embrace. It’s getting chilly again, but the cold doesn’t have the same bite anymore. Slowly, slowly, it’s fading away.

 

“Henry,” is the unsurprising answer. But it’s oddly apologetic, and Regina clarifies, “After you informed us that you planned to leave and ran off-“

 

“Whoa, I didn’t inform you of anything. Hook did. I had a much more delicate way I was planning on talking about-“ 

 

“Oh? Is that why you spent weeks avoiding me?” Regina’s hands tighten on her cheeks. “You wouldn’t even look me in the eye for days before I found out why.” 

 

“Yeah. I was figuring it out.” But she can’t quite look at Regina again, not until her hands are soft again and guide her to meet her gaze again.

 

“You didn’t go,” Regina says. “That’s the part that matters. And when I asked Henry, he said…he said his home was here.” She shrugs, self-deprecating. “He probably meant with heroes and fairytales and his grandparents, but…” 

 

She musters up a grin, and it’s easier than it’s been in a while. “He meant with you. His mom. His family.”

 

And the smile that lights up Regina’s face steals her breath away. Directed at her, it’s like a sunbeam illuminating her heart-first, flashing through her whole without giving her any space to hide away. Regina is so _fucking beautiful_. 

 

Snow is really not going to like this.

 

“We’re both his family,” Regina murmurs, stroking her hair. “I suppose that’s how it’ll always be.” 

 

“It could be worse.” 

 

“Mm.” It’s hardly an agreement but Emma pulls her closer anyway, pressing her lips into the crook of Regina’s shoulder. Regina doesn’t move her fingers from Emma’s hair. “Are you still cold? I thought this was working.” 

 

She lifts her head again, Regina’s hands coming back to her cheeks, and today is unbelievable enough already that she doesn’t think twice about licking her lips and saying, “Maybe we should get rid of all these extra layers. I don’t think your body heat is working as well through cotton.” 

 

“ _Cotton_?” Regina looks dismayed for a moment before she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Don’t push it.” 

 

“Not even a little?” She’s leaning forward as Regina’s hands guide her onward, and she doesn’t know which one of them is initiating it before they’re kissing, lips moving together and parting and tongues barely touching for a moment before Emma’s hands are sliding up to Regina’s bra automatically and unhooking it.

 

“Emma,” Regina says warningly, but she doesn’t move away to rehook it. Or to stop kissing Emma. Emma’s kisses are sloppy and furious, everywhere all at once, but Regina kisses like she does everything else- methodically and _very_ effectively, licking and sucking and biting her way down to Emma’s pulse point, moving on to the next spot only once she manages to elicit a whimper from her helpless subject. 

 

“Sorry. It’s- _oh!-_ habit- _don’t stop_!” she orders, and Regina hisses, “Don’t tell me what to do,” and Emma’s bra disappears in a puff of purple magic.

 

“Oh, fuck,” Emma breathes, and then things move much faster and she’s writhing and shouting out some things that make Regina snap other things in approval and are they arguing while they’re inside of each other? Yes. Yes, they are. It’s ridiculous and it’s kind of great, even once the arguing stops and Regina’s given up on marking her  _everywhere_ and is kind of humming- she’d call it a purr if Regina hadn’t left a giant pink bruise on her neck when she’d pointed out that Regina had been mewling- curled up in her arms.

 

She nuzzles Emma’s neck. “This is all your fault,” she mumbles. “I’m supposed to be mourning the loss of my soulmate, not sleeping with Snow White’s daughter.”

 

“ _My_ fault?” Emma raises her eyebrows, smirking. If they’re playing this game, they’re playing it her way. “Uh-huh. Tell me honestly that there aren’t dozens of easier ways to magically keep me warm without body heat.” 

 

“Fuck you,” Regina says agreeably. She’s boneless after sex, draped all over Emma with no interest in moving, and it’s probably both the most and least comfortable she’s ever been. “The ice is out of you, isn’t it?”

 

Emma squints at her. “Are you implying that we just had sex to heal me? This is your angle? Because I’m not gonna pick another fight with Elsa just to win you over.” 

 

Regina’s eyes are doing that thing again, the one where there’s so much love in her for Henry that sometimes a little bit of it leaks out at Emma instead. “No, you idiot, we did it because–“ She stops, her lips firming into a little line that should _not_ be this cute on the Number Ten Movie Villain of All Time According To Wikipedia. (Zelena is fourth. Tough break, Regina.) “Yes. We did it to make you warm again.” She scowls and nips at a spot halfway between Emma’s neck and chest. “Are you warm?”

 

“Nope,” she lies, her eyes dancing, and Regina’s mouth curls into a smirk in return. “Freezing cold.” 

 

“Well, then,” Regina decides. “Let’s get back to it.”

 

She’s heard worse ideas. “If you insist.”


End file.
